South Africa has
the biggest number of Internet users in the SADC region which are estimated at
4.6 million.
1. Most people in the country gain access
to new ICTs mainly through shared public access points such as cyber cafes,
public libraries, and telecentres (Thlabela & Roodt, 2006; Jensen, 2004,
Mutula, 2003). Because of a pervasive digital divide due to widespread poverty
and a limited telecommunications infrastructure, access to the Internet at home
is still very low and limited mainly to the rich. Therefore, public access to
the Internet in South Africa is the epicenter of ICTs policies to bridge the
digital divide and ensure universal access. Universal access is seen as key to
participatory democracy and development for all its 45 million citizens.
2. To achieve this, the country has a well
co-ordinated policy of universal access that seeks to create an enabling
environment that pools efforts by all state and non-state telecoms players (Voslo,
2005; Thlabela & Roodt; 2006). Through the UniversaL Service and Access
Agency of South Africa (USAASA), the government organizes and co-ordinates all
national connectivity initiatives that seek to bridge all forms of the
digital divide. For example,
in 2006 the government and other agencies built a total of 689 cyber cafes in
all the 9 provinces of the country so as to enhance shared community access to
the Internet.
3.Established telecommunications operators such as Telkom, MTN, Vodacom, Cell C
and others also contribute to the Universal Access Fund which is used to
generate capital to boost public access levels. Through cyber Cafes, mostly owned
by private individuals, municipalities, public agencies, NGOs, and churches,
people can access a range of telecommunications services such as the Internet,
telephony, faxing, photocopying, and printing services. While government policy
may be paying dividends in terms of the roll out of ICTs to communities to
ensure physical access, it is not very clear how the political economy of the
cybercafé industry is actually influencing access and use patterns. Consistent access
and use depends largely on whether people can afford cyber café charges and on
whether cyber café facilities are available and easily accessible in their
communities. Again, democracy and development in the country depend
largely on what communication and informational resources citizens have access
to and most importantly, how they can use them to empower themselves. In
addition to the questions of affordability, availability, and accessibility of
cyber café services, the research will also study the political economy of
local languages and local content and its potential impact on access. The
provision of local content on the Internet has been one of the biggest
challenges in South Africa. While the South African government has also openly
acknowledged the importance of local content online, Unwin (2004, 65), notes
that generally in Africa there is ‘very little multimedia content being
developed by and for African people, let alone in African languages.’ This
research believes that this has a negative impact on the potential impact of
public access, especially with regards to the participation of ordinary people.
As such, it will also seek to
investigate how local content affects people’s access, uses, and the overall
impact of cyber cafes in South Africa.
Local content refers to ‘the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community- where the
community is defined by its location, language, culture, religion, or other
shared interests’ (Ballantyne, 2002; also see Khan 2009; Kariithi, 2003, UNDP
Report 1999). In simple terms, local content on the Internet refers to the
locally-generated media texts such as news, data, information, video, films,
music, e-books, blogs, websites, data bases, etc, that people can access and
use in cyber cafes. As Vosloo (2005, 24) explains, the key to local content is
that it must be content ‘coming from the local people [and] created by the
local community, or taken from external sources and then adapted by the
community to meet its needs.’ It does not have to be necessarily in the
community’s language, although local and indigenous languages are clearly
important.
[1] Statistics are
based on the latest figures from the Internet World Statistics, a website that
basis its figures from the ITU and NielsenNet ratings. For more about the Internet in South
Africa visit the websites of Africa Information Society Initiative
(AISI), Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) at http://www.uneca.org/aisi and http://www.unaca.rg/aisi
respectively.
[2] South Africa signed the Millennium Development
Goals (MDG) in 2000 pledging to eradicate poverty and improve human dignity of
its citizens. However, millions of South Africans remain poor and economically marginalized.
New ICTs are seen as an opportunity to promote sustainable development
through creating platforms for e-heahth, e-education, e-government, etc.
[4] Local content as used here also refers
to any Internet content that is produced under the creative control of South
Africans and other African countries. Kariithi (2003:162) adds that apart from
the participation of nationals in its production, “local content must be
primarily understood by its qualitative relevance, material benefit, and long
term contribution to preservation of local cultures and world views.’
